


Smooth Entirely Our Minds

by Ani



Series: Unclose Me (The Falls) [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: BBC Sherlock - Freeform, F/M, M/M, Post Reichenbach, Reichenbach Falls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-03
Updated: 2011-12-03
Packaged: 2017-10-26 19:48:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/287192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ani/pseuds/Ani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Donavon had often said that, in the end, Sherlock would be making the bodies. He had disagreed. John had disagreed even more. Now Sherlock must be content that neither of them had to clean up his mess."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smooth Entirely Our Minds

The problem, Sherlock decided, when the knife blade got caught in the sleeve of his coat, was that he’s honestly tired of being a consulting detective.

At least tired of being one who worked alone.

It’s just a penknife. She didn’t really stand a chance with it, was just upgrading her list of charges, but she’s too high to think it through rationally. He yanked it out and there was a brief moment of hesitation before he snapped it closed.

The moment wherein he almost slit her throat.

She saw it in his eyes, or maybe was just imagining wild demons, howling madness; she started crying and babbling and sank into the wall. Sherlock waited a moment, to determine if she’s confessing anything important. No. So he texted Lestrade and then stood by her and waited, his heart still thumping in his chest, pumping blood into his mouth where he’d cut into his tongue with his teeth on a sharp fall. Chased her across a roof and down the fire escape, into this alley: she’s thirty-four, brunette, worked in a bakery, divorced, no children, started to take heroin (likely therapeutically, for an undiagnosed bipolar disorder), met a _very_ interesting man in a deal, who knew something about the drug trade and quite a lot about trafficking women into England. She was his quickest way to him. For the information, they’ll let her off on the possession (or so he can convince Lestrade). He was not interested in her, particularly.

He’s not interested in _killing_ her.

It was just that Sherlock had become accustomed, in a moment in which an opponent has become temporarily disabled, to press the advantage.

He wondered if that is how John felt, staring down that cabbie.

Or if John was just thinking of him.

The police arrived and hauled her away. She struggled. He did not care.

 

 

 

“I don’t care.”

“I know you don’t. I’m not asking you to appeal to your better angels. I’m asking because otherwise you’ll end up on the wrong side of an investigation.”

Sherlock grimaced at Lestrade, as if this was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. He was secretly clutching his phone in his pocket. His other hand was secretly twitching in its pocket. He hadn’t slept in fifty-three hours. He kept playing tough.

Lestrade sighed and rubbed his eyes. He hasn’t gotten much rest, either. The nervous way he turned his neck was discomfort; his shirt was wrinkled and there was an old pair of socks balled up under his desk. He slept here on a couch. He would pour another coffee and regret it.

When he’s tired his deductions had this strange rhythm to them, like a mechanical chug of train tracks, like he’s already been here and is reiterating them only for empty habit. He _needed_ to sleep or his thinking will become further impaired.

In thinking about his thinking (about his thinking about his thinking; how many layers could he have, hypothetically? No: concentrate -) he had been quiet. He realized Lestrade was waiting for a response. He scoffed and said, “I’m too useful to you to put behind bars.”

Lestrade said, “Yes, you are. At times.”

Now Sherlock was being quiet on purpose. He knew this would  provoke the other person to speak. He wondered when the phone would vibrate in his hand, and what John could be doing that’s possibly more important than answering him, it only takes a minute.

“There are definitely times we need you. But, you know, for three years we had to make due and things were still okay.” Lestrade made a _hah_ noise. “No superheroes and there are no supervillains, I suppose.”

Sherlock had no idea what this was referring to. John could translate.

“This stuff, though...” He sounded dismissive as he looked at the paper in front of him. Sherlock agreed. These cases had been too simple. There were no longer dark shadows of things moving behind them. In, out, crime, innocence, question, answer, punishment, repentance.

Lestrade was alluding to imprisoning Sherlock for matters of bureaucracy and procedure. Whereas Sherlock should really be behind bars for murder in the first degree, aggravated assault, impersonation, grand theft...

Donavon had often said that, in the end, Sherlock would be making the bodies. He had disagreed. John had disagreed even more. Now Sherlock must be content that neither of them had to clean up his mess.

“Whenever people asked me, ‘why?’ I said, ‘because he’s the best.’ And now I’m not so sure that’s true.”

Sherlock’s eyes flashed. There was a cold anger that snaked through him and he had to hush it quiet. “I _am_.”

“Yeah, okay. You’re the best detective here. Whatever.” Lestrade poured two packets of artificial sugar into his mug and stirred it with a pen. “But you’re not _your_ best. And you haven’t been since-”

“Since I left?” he snapped.

“Since you lost John.”

 

 

 

There was no more discussion. Sherlock left and went home and laid down and closed his eyes and tried to sleep. He didn’t. He shoved his hands into his eyes so hard he saw stars because maybe that would somehow help.

The funny thing was, the kind of funny that made John laugh and then wince at himself, is that Sherlock has had the most exhausting three years of his - possibly anyone's - life, and that as desperately tired as he was the hard thing should be _not_ sleeping.

Even _stupid_ people can sleep, he wailed.

 

 

 

In the past three years Sherlock had been starved and beaten and bloodied and done things John would have rightfully prevented. He’d had pain applied to him out of fear, or anger, or wilfully, in pleasure; he has returned in equal strength and equal feeling. At some point it just became further weariness. At some point it became background, as in, oh yes, it is 8° today, mildly overcast, I haven’t eaten in four days and my arm is broken. He had always been good at ignoring his body. He just shut it off. External drive. Not important except as back-up. He had wondered if he’d be able to turn it back on. He had wondered how much damage he could take. He had wondered how much damage he could make and not change in the quiet, deep way John did...

He was not able to go more than ten minutes without mentally commenting upon John unless his mind was _deeply_ distracted. This was, frankly, disturbing, annoying, and embarrassingly weepy.

It answered his question, though. Yes. Back on.

For the past three years the game had real stakes. The game was no longer compelling. He saw where the puzzles and the chases went. He saw where they ended. No longer interesting, because repetitive; no longer interesting, because horrific. Sherlock had confirmed that his brain was not so special as to be immune to common psychology and that, like Skinner’s rat, if you electrocuted the ground again and again and again he would be afraid to tread.

Sherlock was ready for a new challenge. He just didn’t know what the hell that would be.

 

 

 

Sherlock went on.

 

 

 

John went on.

 

 

 

Lestrade was starting to think this was stupid.

 

 

 

He called in Donovan and they made a game of it; she was brilliant at it, way smarter than Sherlock gave her credit for because he’s too busy shouting things to hear her think. She came up with the narrative. He supplied the characters (he’s always liked that, coming up with people) and they both decided on the weapon of choice. They declared _serial killer, in the library, with a wrench!_ because they knew Sherlock wouldn’t get it and that made it even funnier.

Lestrade called Sherlock the next day with the case. Not until late afternoon, he’d noticed how tired the poor bloke looked. His wounds were still fading and he _probably_ shouldn’t be catapulting himself off roofs as if his huge flapping coat could make him fly, but Sherlock has only ever been able to be told _no_ by one person.

(One day Lestrade had thought about this, quietly chuckling as John pushed a gesticulating Sherlock away from a _free skull_ someone had _just left there_ and _there’s only a little mess, it’ll boil right off John!_ He had then thought about a toddler Sherlock with his mother. _That_ thought had been so frightening his brain had immediately backed right out and demanded he never consider this topic again.)

The case was devilishly complicated, Lestrade complained, putting all his sighs into it. He knew Sherlock gloated at his every exasperation. The trap was beautifully laid and covered in intricate disguise. Like a gory Christmas surprise. Sherlock wasn’t quite _gleeful_ , but it was the closest Lestrade had heard him in three years and almost felt bad, that he couldn’t actually offer this string of murders to him.

(It was thoughts like those that made Lestrade rather glad to have met Sherlock, because that meant there will always be someone crazier than him. Someone to point to and go ‘nope, not mad yet’.)

They meet at the library and Lestrade had even put up crime tape across the study hall, because isn’t he crafty, and still Sherlock was instantly aware that something up was as soon as he stepped in. So Lestrade leapt quickly to the chance.

“Stand there and listen to me,” he demanded, so that Sherlock would sit. “We need to talk.”

“About?” he scowled. “I thought we had this discussion yesterday.”

“This is about your relationship with John.”

“ _Really_? Does _everyone_ need to talk about this? Surely you have your _own_ romantic dramas to pay attention to?” Sherlock tossed his phone down on the table in frustration. “Isn’t this what your bloody telly’s for?”

It was self-preservation that made Lestrade Not Laugh. Then he noticed a particular word choice. “I wasn’t aware there was anything romantic to discuss.”

Sherlock’s cloudy brooding could have now supplied the yearly rainfall for the entire northern region. “If there’s no case I’ll go.”

“Sherlock,” Lestrade said pleadingly, and took his own seat. “I’m honestly very worried.”

“Obviously, if you’re going to the trouble of lying to get me here.” Sherlock stared at the empty whiteboard as if it had personally offended him. “Honestly, Lestrade, why are you so interested in our two lives? John once thought you used to have a crush on me, is this your-”

“No. No. God no. Not even if you were the last person on earth.”

He watched Sherlock do that strange eye-frown that meant he was puzzling out potentials. “If the last three people were you and I, and Anderson?”

“Thank you. I was fresh out of nightmares this month.”

“You haven’t slept well since Davies found those two infants in the dumpster.”

Lestrade sometimes wondered if you could cause eye-strain, rolling them so hard. “Well see, on _top_ of all of London’s general cruelty and stupid malice I have to worry about the love life of two strange men and one nice woman who have all become my friends because God forbid I have a _normal_ life. And if you could get it all sorted I could go back to concerning myself with plebeian things like my _own_ lack of romance. Hmm? So maybe you help me make this the last conversation I have on the topic because I’m not enjoying it _either_.”

He had the momentary enjoyment of watching Sherlock blink owlishly. Maybe this was the first time that Sherlock realized he did, in fact, have other friends. Maybe Sherlock honestly had a mental tally of ‘people who keep talking about the consulting detective and his doctor’ and it was so many it _could_ be on telly. Whatever: he’d gotten Sherlock’s attention, and he was now leaning forward on the cheap wood, alert, listening.

Lestrade was once again the Bigger Man and did not sarcastically bite out ‘ _thank_ you’ even though he would if his memory forced him to relive this moment.

“All right.” He took out a folded piece of paper and handed it to Sherlock. “I don’t think I need this anymore. But you should take a look.”

Sherlock scanned it quickly before starting to reread it slowly. The frown deepened.

“Those are all the ways John fell apart,” Lestrade said quietly. “When we thought you were dead.”

His fingers, exploring the page, kept pausing on numbers, like they were barbed, like they were catching him.

“I had to pick up the pieces. I mean, someone did, or I don’t think he’d be here to see your return.”

“John isn’t weak,” he bit.

“No, no he isn’t. But it’s not a matter of strength, we both know that. But maybe that’s John’s problem.” Lestrade shrugged, stared at the blinds in the window so Sherlock could secretly express whatever was boiling through him, whatever was making him wrinkle up the paper, _alter evidence_. “Maybe John’s too strong, too capable, too able to love and there was just too much of it.”

“No.”

“You have to set this right, Sherlock.”

“I _can’t_.”

There was a break in his voice. Lestrade looked back over quickly, because this was the moment a suspect confessed. The moment a person started crying. Sherlock looked like he was collapsing into himself, becoming smaller, just a stick of a man in nice clothes and nothing to say of himself. “Obviously. I can’t change the past, I can’t fix what’s become, can’t change...” he waved his hand. “John doesn’t...”

“John is still in love with you.”

Lestrade had seen Sherlock cry before, for cases. His eyes would fill and his chin quiver and he would look just awful. This was different. His face was blank. There was a pulse in his neck beating. He looked more miserable than anyone with an expression possibly could.

“Do you know that for a fact?” he asked weakly.

“Yes.”

“Mmm.” Sherlock nodded like this was a mere confirmation of data. He reached out for his phone and cradled it. Then the moment passed and he breathed in, almost imperceptibly, and was back to a safe nothing. “Well. That just proves my point.”

“Which is?”

“I have been setting things right. That is right. To allow John to live his life with wife and child. If I reintroduced myself into his life, it would....I would be a distraction.”

“And you just pine forever?”

Sherlock looked him in the eye. It felt like a sharp pin and Lestrade leaned back into his chair unwillingly.

“Isn’t that the _right_ thing to do? The thing that _moral_ people do? Keep their pointless feelings quiet and suffer so that others don’t have to?”

This wasn’t exactly the argument Lestrade was expecting. He wanted to, of all things and very badly, hug Sherlock and ruffle his hair as if the man were his son. And he knew that next time someone called Sherlock a sociopath to his face they were going to have a _very_ stern talk.

“Well,” he said slowly, “I would normally agree with you. You’re right. You’re totally right. And for any other case... well. What I am about to tell you, Sherlock, is morally wrong and ethically dubious and... Sherlock. _Go to him_.”

Sherlock stared at him for a long moment. And then gathered the note and his phone, his scarf and gloves and coat, pulled back on his impenetrable layers and left Lestrade there.

It was a very quiet _thank you_ that he muttered.

This was, Lestrade thought, the first time Sherlock had ever accepted or needed permission from anyone else.

He was not sure it was the right thing to give, but he was glad to have done it.

 

 

 

Sherlock stood outside the library and took out his phone and sent two messages to John. They were simple but he knew John would get the point.

 

  
_221B. Come if convenient. Come if inconvenient. Come anyway. -SH_

John had never been able to refuse that calling.

Sherlock could no longer refuse himself.

 _I need you. -SH_

 __

**Author's Note:**

> I won NaNo! Now I an actually finish this!


End file.
